Executive Director Julius Ciaccia and his team at the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District need to revisit their decision to build massive, expensive tunnels to comply with a federally-mandated water clean-up instead of embracing potentially cheaper green options the district itself was able to negotiate with the federal government in a landmark consent decree.

That is the disturbing take-away from the recent comprehensive series by Northeast Ohio Media Group reporters Leila Atassi and Andrew Tobias.

Going gray was the wrong way to embark on a $3 billion project that has hit residential ratepayers with nearly $3,500 in additional rate hikes since 1991. While this editorial board repeatedly urged the district to favor green options over gray pipes, we also supported the rate hikes that now appear to have been based on the district's mistaken decision to discard the green course as too expensive, untested and impractical.

Ciaccia and the sewer district need to change course now.

Other cities such as Cincinnati and New York have chosen green over gray. Green has the advantage of beautifying vacant property and adding value to it, which Cleveland, home to 15,000 vacant and abandoned parcels, sorely needs.

It may not work in every instance, but it's definitely worth using the biggest infrastructure project in years to help our most benighted neighborhoods.

It turns out the sewer district has time to make a major course correction and aggressively add more green projects. The district is reopening the consent decree with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to negotiate mandates on nutrients in waterways and an extension of the 25-year consent decree. Adding more green projects will also be on the table, says Ciaccia.

That's good news because the sewer district is currently planning to spend far too much -- 97.5 percent of project funds -- on seven costly, massive tunnels that hold sewer overflows until it can be pumped into sewage treatment plants. Ciaccia says the sewer district was the first in the country to negotiate into an EPA consent decree a plan to spend $80 million on green projects by 2019 and even add more.

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And he says he’s working with state transportation officials in charge of the Opportunity Corridor, a potentially blight-blasting five-lane boulevard that will connect University Circle with Cleveland’s far East Side and open up more area for green projects. That effort must continue.

Ciaccia says he will revive a committee of green advocates to help the sewer district work on green projects and he does have some warnings: He points out that green projects come with high barriers, such as the EPA requirement that the sewer district have full control over the land in perpetuity so that it can be properly maintained. In perpetuity is a long time. The EPA ought to revise that regulation so that the land can be transferred to an owner who promises to keep up the property.

However, if you follow 97.5 percent of the money, and Ciaccia’s arguments — as well as the cold shoulder given until now to community experts pushing for green — he clearly is more enamored with gray tunnels than green gardens.

The sewer district must learn from cities that have embraced green projects. Building big, expensive tunnels isn’t the only way to keep lakes and rivers clean. Ciaccia and his team must dedicate themselves to embracing far more green projects and reaching out to those community experts who are eager to help.

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